Melt Working Title
by Nova Creation
Summary: Before the beginning... how did Trinity become so cold?
1. Chapter 1

I'm not going to summarise, just read it and see if you like it. I should be posting a new chapter every few days. Please R&R, and be gentle with me, it's my first fic :S! BTW, the words typed like /this/ mean I tried to do italics and failed miserably. If anyone knows how to type in italics on ff.net, can you pls tell me!! Oh, and thank u to Trin (ttlg) for letting me cheeb her statement. It is totally the rock of the story, and the entire fic would simply fall down without it! Ta love x :P  
  
(I don't own anything from the Matrix film(s) or anything like that.)  
  
~  
  
Chapter 1  
  
She gradually raised her small, lean frame from the chair. She spread her strong delicate hands onto the edge of the table and pushed herself slowly up. Slowly, tiredly, as if this action was among her last.  
  
Her movement was careful, weary. When she was standing, her drink in one hand fizzing with all of the energy she didn't have, she room fell silent. Sound fading away until the entire space was still.  
  
Her eyes rested momentarily on a space on the floor. She steadily raised her head to look the crowd in the eye. This room, here, was her house now. Where /she/ would have been, where /she/ would have stood, where /she/ would have lived. A brief, short moment of silence, where embarrassment should have interfered and told her to get off and sit down. But no feeling could touch her until she had projected herself upon these people. It seemed an eternity ago when it was summer, and these pale winter-skinned individuals were animated and colourful. But not now. Now their hypocrisy had taken over their appearance. This room full of bitches, this space filled with traitors. It would make her spit in disgust to think about once calling them friends. Her heavy, lethargic eyelids closed briefly and she dragged them open.  
  
"She...." She stopped herself. Realisation of not knowing what she was about to say washed over her. She allowed her mouth to open and her soul to speak for her.  
  
"She loved you all."  
  
A few people looked around, unsure. She knew what they were thinking. If she were in anybody else's position, she would have written this woman standing on a table, shoes kicked off on the floor, dress wrinkled and hair unruly, as a drunk. But, although this was an undeniable truth, the alcohol in her body did not cloud her actions. If anything, they made the world slightly clearer. A bare display of emotion coming from deep within her was exactly what this treacherous crowd needed.  
  
"An unbefitting glitch, inconsistent with your norms and unwritten tenets was what she was. And she loved you all."  
  
Her tone was not angry, just simply hopeless. Like talking to a person about to die that evening about what you were going to do tomorrow. You know that nothing you can say will change anything, there is no hope for you there, but hell, who cares? Just as that dieing person had asked what you were going to do tomorrow, these people had asked for what she was giving them now.  
  
A woman stood, gently taking her hand. "Come down now, babe. You're making it harder for everyone else."  
  
She pulled her hand away, not coldly, nor sharply, but showing such rejection that the woman sat down again.  
  
"What saddens me most is that she never knew. And what should hang over your heads and over your graves is that /you/ did. And that your own selfish minds made the choice, /that/ /choice/, not to say anything. Not to let a dying woman know the truth before she finally passed away. I think the saddest truth is, unconditionally, she /loved/ /you/ /all/."  
  
She stood for a moment, in her tired position, her head tilted down slightly, her shoulders drooping, her dress hanging gently across her thin lean frame, letting the stunned hush of her spectators fill the air. She raised her head and lifted her eyes one last time.  
  
"I want to thank all of my friends, all of you, for /not/ being there when I was needing you most. You have no idea how much stronger you made me."  
  
As she made her way off the table, the same woman that had taken her hand before tried to help her. She brushed away the gesture and independently climbed down. Slipping on her shoes, she turned the woman, who was once a good friend.  
  
"Don't offer me help if you don't mean it. The least you could do now is be straight with me."  
  
She whispered it, so as not to cause the woman public embarrassment, but her face still flushed red in an unsightly contrast to her pale blonde hair.  
  
And now, this newfound coldness took over her being. As she picked up her bag and made her way through the room with her drink still in one hand, she felt herself harden. This is what it felt like, to have nothing. She felt no sadness, except grief for the loss of her mother figure, but the betrayal of her 'friends' had been extinguished along with the now gone relationships she had had with them. Her eyes, normally seen as an incredible shining diamond blue, had turned to a cold, unemotional ice blue. It was a difference undetectable to anybody except her now. She had nobody to care for that would note this new unfamiliar hardness etch its way into her heart.  
  
~ 


	2. Chapter 2

Still having trouble with italics... I've tried out a million different things but none of them work! So, for future reference, italics are still typed /this/ /way/.  
  
Nithke – Wow my first ever review!! Thank you for not completely slating the whole thing!! Yeah I was thinking about a small summary, so I'm going to try and put one up. What can I say, you have cracked the mystery female, yeah its Trinity. Not saying who's writing it though, it might not even be a person... he he, and out of interest, what made you think it was a female?  
  
Torokaha – Thank you so much, I hope you'll still like it when you read this chapter because I'm not sure that it's written as well as the last one. Thanks for the confidence boost!  
  
Anyway, enjoy! R&R readers x  
  
~  
  
Chapter 2  
  
She didn't have an alarm clock anymore. The time of day had no meaning to her. She would work when she wanted, sleep when she was tired, and eat when she felt hungry. She would wake when she had had enough sleep, not to an alarm, so she was surprised when she woke to the sound of a continuous ringing in her ears.  
  
The telephone.  
  
She hadn't heard it ring in so long she had almost forgotten what it sounded like. Almost forgotten it was there. She slipped out of her bed and quickly stepped across her laptop lying on the floor, the thin wire snaking out of it reaching over to the socket in the wall. She lent upwards as she grabbed the telephone off the hook on her bare shelf. She had been living for god knows how long without anything more than she needed. Her belongings were in other people's homes now, as she sold them to make more money to fund her infatuating pastime that consumed her innermost /soul/.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
She held the phone close to her face subconsciously, as if she could absorb the human attention she was receiving now.  
  
"Good afternoon, ma'am." It was afternoon. Interesting. "Can I interest you in buying two hundred new channels for your cable with an extra free trial with every purchase?"  
  
She was confused. But it was just a salesperson.  
  
"Uh... I don't think so..."  
  
"We could take your details and send you an information pack if you would prefer more time to think about it." She stayed silent. "Can I take your first and last names please, miss?"  
  
She opened her mouth to say her name when she realised. It just wasn't her anymore. This name belonged to another person. That naïve feminine upper- middle class white bred bitch of a human, who wore impressive two-piece suits and elegant dresses in the evening and who had bitchy spic-and-span friends who drowned her with compliments about her never ending collection of graceful, feminine outfits she wore out to lunch with them almost every day. That youthful inexperienced /naïve/ little girl living in a rose tinted world and who was immune to the truth. But now.... who was she now? She was an introvert, spending her life looking for things that weren't there, living in solitude with the exception of answering the door when the supermarket internet-order delivery man came past with her shopping. Now she was a shell of the person she was before... or had she imploded the other way and the girl she used to be was a fraction of who she was now? Perhaps both, perhaps neither. Although she had always been fortunately intelligent, she ordinarily didn't need to use that side of herself before. But now, exercising this part of her mind seemed to be what she was destined for.  
  
"Ma'am? Are you still there?" she'd almost forgotten she was on the phone. "Could I take your name, please?"  
  
Then, this insignificant salesperson brought back who this woman was. Brought back those memories she had that made her know she no longer wanted to have to be polite to strangers, or to put forward an etiquette with a person she disliked.  
  
"I told you I didn't want your product. Don't ring my number again, thank you."  
  
She hung the phone up. Her expression of gratitude was not exactly sarcastic, but more authoritive, the way teachers talked to kids less that half their age. She bent over to the laptop on the floor and carried it to the bare desk underneath the window. The curtains were closed, as they always were, and she had no intention of ever drawing them again. The phone started ringing again. Slightly more cross she stepped back to the phone, pulling it off the hook.  
  
"I told you not to-"  
  
"Told me not to what?"  
  
This was a different voice. A heavy male voice, with a hint of something.... she couldn't tell...  
  
Unphased by this surprise she didn't answer.  
  
"I'm sorry I thought you were someone else." She said coolly. "Can I help you?"  
  
"I thought you might be able to help me, actually."  
  
His tone had a clever edge to it. Clever because he knew something, or clever because he was about to?  
  
"Are you trying to sell something?"  
  
"No. But perhaps you would buy what I was offering?"  
  
She sighed audibly into the phone. "What do you mean?"  
  
"A new life? What you're looking for. A life where no lies are left covered." Something happened inside her at that point. A kind of changeover. The world tilted very, very slightly, and something interior dropped down to her feet. This person, this man she was talking to knew her inside out.  
  
"Do I know you?"  
  
"I think you'd like to meet me."  
  
'But I don't know you' nearly slipped out of her mouth then, but that wasn't her. That was the naïve little rich girl.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"When can you get to the corner of 21st?"  
  
"Fifteen minutes."  
  
"See you then."  
  
~ 


	3. Chapter 3

Wow. I am totally overwhelmed by my reviews! I'm so glad that my fic has gone down well, especially as it's my first one! I'm not sure if my writing is getting worse with every chapter though, it just seems to me that I'm not describing things well enough. Also, my planned storyline seems a bit confusing so I'm going to try and change it a bit.  
  
Daniel – That is possibly the most stunningly beautiful review I have had. You probably wont believe it but I actually hugged my monitor after reading that. Thank you so much, I'm so flattered that people are liking my fic!!  
  
Geekgurl – yey! Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy this next chapter. Tell me what you think!  
  
Da Buffster – thank you for your life-saving information! Slight problem: I can only use a computer as far as I can throw one, so although I do know what you mean and I'm sure I've done it before somehow, I really can't change my file thingies. I can't do it!! Ahh!! Help!!! (Thanks) x  
  
Trin (ttlg) – Yes, again I hugged the monitor. I already know what you think but, ah well, my head really was quite small in the first place. And a little bit of growing never hurt anyone! ;) Thank you for flattering me again!! X  
  
Anyway, as usual readers, read and review let me know what you think.  
  
Enjoy – Nova x  
  
~  
  
Chapter 3  
  
And so, she waited. Tense little checks of the time, from the clock tower to her right. She had no idea what time it was when she left her apartment, when she reached the corner of 21st, when he was coming.  
  
But she was sure she left a hell of a long time more than 15 minutes ago.  
  
This was when she should have panicked. She should have been fretting, worrying about where this person she should have been with was now. If he was coming, if he had gotten caught up. If something bad had happened. But the differences in her personality had already begun to become evident to her. She wouldn't let herself panic. If he turned up, he did. If he didn't... well. She would write him off as some bastard hacker who was playing with her for fun. And she would go home and find him out and fry his hard drive with viruses.  
  
She ran her fingers through her dark limp hair, now past her shoulders from neglecting to go out and get it cut. One last look up at the clock tower, a sigh of annoyance, and then straight back on home.  
  
~  
  
As she stepped in through her front door, she caught her reflection in the mirror facing her at the end of the corridor.  
  
That was her.  
  
/Look/ /at/ /yourself/. /You/ /went/ /out/ /with/ /your/ /hair/ /like/ /that/.  
  
She had forgotten about that mirror. It was the only one in her house that she would see herself in when she came in. And she hadn't left in so long, she hadn't needed to come in.  
  
/You/ /are/ /not/ /presentable/. It was the voice of her ex-friends, enforcing themselves upon her brain.  
  
It scared her, knowing that these people, who she hated so bitterly, still had such an effect on her mind. She knew that she had been brainwashed, and as a result had rejected her society. But she hated how evident to her they still were. A surge of anger hit her body and she threw her door keys at the mirror as hard as she could, letting out a scream of anger. She watched as they hit it, smashing her image in front of her eyes.  
  
And then she was calm and collected again. She gently closed the door, and walked back to her laptop, leaving the webbed glass falling in shards to the floor, bit by bit.  
  
~  
  
The phone rang again that evening. She knew who it would be before she answered.  
  
"Bad news. When I find your computer, no amount of firewalls can stop me frying your ass."  
  
She almost heard him smile on the other end of the phone.  
  
"I somehow think that you won't be able to find it."  
  
"You don't know what I'm capable of."  
  
She heard a sigh and another smile on the other end. "I'm afraid I do, Trinity."  
  
She knew she should have been shocked that that name had been associated with this telephone number. But she wasn't.  
  
"You don't scare me. Your just another aspirant hacker."  
  
"Far from it. I believe that when it comes down to it, I can do things that you can't even imagine."  
  
She frowned, bored with the conversation they were having. Without saying anything, she simply hung up. She thought he would probably ring back until he also got bored and gave up, so she turned the ring off the phone. She stepped over to her computer again. It was strange. Although she had promised herself never to be so trusting with her friendship again, she had still managed to find a group of cyber-friends. They had all been looking for the same thing. But now, they were slowly disappearing, with no warning. Tonight, one of her online associates going by the name of Cooper was not on. He hadn't been on yesterday. And normally they were all on every day.  
  
She lent forward as she adjusted her screen. A small black and white striped box was quivering in the corner of the screen. She ran her finger over it as if she could wipe it away, when the whole screen suddenly flickered and went black.  
  
She sat up. Power cut? No. The lights were still on. The plug had probably slipped out of the back of the computer when she was adjusting it. She stretched her thin arm around it to fiddle with the plug at the back.  
  
/Beep/.  
  
She looked back at the screen. Her face dropped as she saw the words spread across the darkness.  
  
'Your phone ringer is turned off.'  
  
She turned around to look at the phone, as if it had told him what had happened. She looked back at her screen. The words vanished, to be replaced by new ones.  
  
'I wanted to explain to you why I did not turn up.'  
  
She sighed. She didn't know what trick this guy was pulling but she'd had enough. She leant round to the back of the computer again and pulled the plug out.  
  
/Beep/.  
  
She sat up again in shock.  
  
'Another aspirant hacker?'  
  
'You can hardly imagine.'  
  
~ 


	4. Chapter 4

I apologise in advance for this terrible excuse for a chapter. I thought I needed to update soon and I haven't really been writing because of a death in the family and needed to help sort out arrangements. Hopefully it will inspire me some more to write about the death of Trinity's 'mother figure', but at the moment I have writers... not 'block' but more 'misdirection'. At the moment I can't really write, but the second I get my right hand back, I'll re-write these chapters. 

Please don't kill me if you work for the IRS and know exactly what it is, because, quite frankly, I don't have a clue. I tried to a little research by going on the official website, but to be honest it went in one eye and out the other. I managed to get something about taxes, but apart from that I got totally confused. Flame if you think is necessary, but bare in mind that I will be changing these ASAP. I'm also going to post a chapter of a fic that I started writing a few weeks ago pretty randomly, so please read. It's called 'Bleh' at the moment; because I cant think of a title for it.

Anyway, read and (hopefully) enjoy.

Nova x

~

Chapter 4

_2 months later_.

She had nearly run out of money. That weird...'thing' that happened a few months back had now completely enveloped and absorbed her mind. She was now a complete and total addict.

It was the information that she was after. She needed answers to her questions. There was no FAQ web site holding the answers that she had to have. How did he do it? Did she imagine it? Who was he? What did he want? What did she want?

She was hardly sleeping. Sometimes she would wake to find her computer still running searches in front of her. She could never tell how long she slept for - 20 minutes or 2 hours, it never made a difference. And she needed more money to fund her obsession.

Which is when it hit her. She had all of this talent, all of this power at her fingertips. Here, she could make anything happen. _Well, almost anything._ She didn't need to be sitting there, worrying about her financial situation. Getting a job was out of the question. So she realised what she was going to do. 

She knew about Internet fraud. Of course she did. Everyone did. She knew the risks. But she also knew that she could beat the odds. She was quick and untraceable. And this is what led her to her decision.

~

It had been three weeks. It had been three weeks and she was only beginning to relax. It had been three weeks, and she was famous.

She still hadn't heard from Cooper. She wasn't worried. Perhaps he had taken the same risks and had been caught. 

And then it hit her. She could find out what had happened to him. She had lists of social security numbers. She had lists of who the FBI and CIA had their eye on. She had lists of real names and alternative identities. She knew the true identities of some of the most legendary hackers. And her name was the only one on the list with no real name, address or SSN. 

She had contemplated changing her name to something else. Now she was so popularly known, it was dangerous for people to know when she was online. People would say to her, _'Wow, Trinity. It was only three weeks ago when you hacked into the IRS CPU!' _and she would be proud for a millisecond and then get sick of it. She only did it to get money, to erase her finances, and to try and find ...him. It had been almost three months, and she wished she had turned the ring on her phone back on when he asked her.

That's when it hit her. Did she turn it back on after that day? She didn't think so. If he just rang one more time then she wouldn't need to keep looking. She got up, stretching her legs, and then walked over to the shelf with the telephone on it. 

She was right. She hadn't turned it back on. Almost three whole months, and she didn't even think to check. He might have tried to call her again. She would have missed it. If only she hadn't been so harsh and cold and untrusting. All she knew about him was that he was so high up; even the IRS didn't have him listed. 

She thought about what this meant. She had had this one chance, of finding that escape from her limited reality. And what did she do with it? She blew it. Her one chance. And what if there wasn't going to be another one? Would she spend the rest of her life here, in this bare apartment, stealing money from the government to buy her weekly shopping on the Internet? Could she go on like this forever? Or would she give up and ring one of her old ex-friends. Apologise for kicking up a scene at the funeral and invite them out for lunch. The funeral... she had hardly thought about it for months and months on end. The most major loss in her life and she still hadn't mourned it. 

But however unsure of her future she was, she knew that she would never return to those traitors. 

She flicked the ring back on the telephone. Any second now, she knew it. It would ring. 

She thought she would have been more anxious. But she just stood, waiting for his call. She was so sure of herself there was no need for nerves. Her eyes flicked gently back to her computer screen, where her list of identities waited. Any second now, she knew it. 

She didn't even bat an eyelid when the phone began to ring.

~


End file.
